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Women are more likely than men to initiate divorces, but women and men are just as likely to end non-marital relationships, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

In three studies, we examined the influence of social network reactions on feelings toward a romantic partner. Study 1 was a large survey (N = 858), Study 2 was a vignette design in which social network reactions were manipulated, and Study 3 was a laboratory-based, dating game experiment. We found extensive support for the social network effect, whereby relationship approval from family and friends leads individuals to feel more love, more committed, and more positive about a partner. We also examined whether psychological reactance moderated social network influence.

If you want to mix drinks for a living, don’t expect to have a typical family life.

That was the conclusion of a study by Tulane University sociologists Emily Starr and Alicia McCraw, who interviewed 40 New Orleans area bartenders for their study, “Barkeeps and Barmaids on the White Picket Fence: Bartenders, Gender, and Performative Adulthood,” which they presented at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

We examine instances of youth cyber aggression, arguing that the close relationships of friendship and romance substantially influence the chances of being targeted. We investigate networks of friendship, dating, and aggression among a sample of 788 eighth- to twelfth-grade students in a longitudinal study of a New York school. Approximately 17 percent reported some involvement in cyber aggression within the past week. LGBTQ youth were targeted at a rate over four times that of their heterosexual peers, and females were more frequent victims than males.

Adolescence is a period of tremendous socioemotional change, when youth develop important relationship skills that they carry with them into adulthood. The mental health of individuals during this period might act as resources or impediments that impact their ability to cultivate such skills as well as outcomes in their later romantic relationships.

Research on young-adult sexuality in sub-Saharan Africa typically conceptualizes sex as an individual-level risk behavior. We introduce a new approach that connects the conditions surrounding the initiation of sex with subsequent relationship well-being, examines relationships as sequences of interdependent events, and indexes relationship experiences to individually held ideals. New card-sort data from southern Malawi capture young women’s relationship experiences and their ideals in a sequential framework.

Although research shows that spouses influence each other’s health behaviors and psychological well being, we know little about whether these patterns extend to young people in nonmarital as well as marital relationships. We use the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to consider how a romantic partner’s binge drinking and depression influence the respondent’s binge drinking and depression within 1,111 young adult couples and explore whether these processes are moderated by gender.